We checked out four guitars all priced close to or under $1000. Each has a wood body and some version of a spider cone. And though the spider cone tends to be more associated with bluegrass musicians and square neck dobro players while the biscuit bridge and tricone resonators of National guitars are associated with blues and Hawaiian players, there is a lot of crossover. And in this review we will focus the playing on blues and slide guitar.
Gretsch G9200 Boxcar Standard
Ratings
Pros:
Light weight. Cool vintage vibe.
Cons:
Need to tune to get good slide tone.
Tones:
Playability:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$599
Gretsch
www.gretsch.com
The Gretsch is feather-light and vintage styled from its aged pearloid headstock to the soft V-shape of the neck. The body, back, and sides, are built from laminated Mahogany and feature twin f-holes on the top, while the neck is mahogany with a rosewood fretboard. But the heart of the Gretsch is the resonator, which Gretsch has dubbed the Ampli-sonic and built from 99% pure aluminum that is hand spun in Eastern Europe. Black, open-gear Grover tuners are an attractive addition. And the only construction flaw I could detect was a spot of underspray around one of the f-holes.
The soft V neck is very comfortable and evokes the feel of a vintage Martin. The guitar I received was set up with D’Addario light gauge strings (.012-.053) and had low action, which makes it easy to navigate the fretboard. My one quibble is that for bottleneck playing the action is a little low—easy enough to correct, but far from ideal.
The Box Car produces a cool, nasally honk and has great projection. In open G and open D tuning there’s a nice balance between low and treble strings, making it easy to articulate slide lines. But tuning the guitar down for open G and D tunings slackens the strings to the point of making slide playing more difficult and buzzier sounding. Tuning up to open A tuning resolved the issue and put me in closer proximity to Robert Johnson’s slide pitch on songs like “Crossroads” and “Come on in My Kitchen”—tunes on which the Gretsch sounded pretty sweet.
Washburn R15RC
The Washburn brand has been a presence in the guitar industry off and on for more than 120 years. Given that the company was originally based in Chicago—a hotbed of blues since the late 1920s—and remains in Illinois to this day, it’s appropriate that Washburn designs and manufactures instruments with an eye towards vintage blues vibes.
With its single f-hole and cutaway the Washburn R15RCE has a way of beckoning you to play. It’s a lovely resonator, and a shimmering tobacco sunburst adds a hint of sophistication to the down home retro look. The lipstick tube-style pickup fits right in from a styling perspective—sitting right between the chrome-plated spider-cone resonator and the end of the fretboard—and it’s controlled via two knurled knobs for volume and tone. Grover-style enclosed tuners help complete the marriage of modern and vintage touches.
Ratings
Pros:
Very affordable and handsome entry-level resonator.
Cons:
Muddy tones when played hard.
Tones:
Playability:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$449
Washburn
www.washburn.com
The Washburn has a slightly chunky U-shaped neck that helps offset the cramped feeling of the narrow string spacing at the nut. I often found myself unintentionally muting strings as I played, and had the neck been much thinner things would have been more difficult because I have fairly large hands. Like most of the guitars it was setup with light gauge strings and low action. And the frets are neatly dressed and without rough edges or snags.
Playing slide proved both rewarding and frustrating. The setup on the low strings is a bit higher than the treble strings, so much that my slide kept striking the frets on the treble strings for using a less-flat slide angle.
Like most guitars with spider-cone resonators, the Washburn has a noticeably nasal honk, albeit with more accents on the low-mid side of things. This produces a punchy tone that is ripe for bluesy slide excursions. Cruising through classic lines in open A and open E highlighted the clarity of the single string runs, as well as fully barred chords. In standard tuning, the bass was a bit muddy for fingerpicked blues and strumming. Instead the Washburn is more responsive to a lighter touch and lighter attack evens the response. This can be a drawback if you tend to be a spirited picker who likes to pound the strings—and many blues players are. But for a songwriter with a more sensitive style that’s looking for a bluesy vibe this could be just the ticket.
The pickup faithfully reproduces the acoustic sound of the instrument, although it doesn’t have a lot of volume. You can remedy this by adding a DI box with volume control or simply rely on your amplifier/PA for more punch.
Recording King RR-50-VS
When you think of guitar history the words Montgomery Ward don’t necessarily come to mind right off the bat. But in the period between the first and second World Wars, Gibson manufactured guitars for the venerable retail chain that were sold under the Recording King brand. The early Recording Kings were great guitars that sold at a fraction of the cost of the more expensive Gibsons. Given that most average blues musician couldn’t afford a Gibson—even if Robert Johnson was pictured with one in that infamous photo—and the fact that the Montgomery Ward catalog was a fixture throughout the South you realize that these instruments probably produced a lot of great blues.
Ratings
Pros:
Great, balanced sound for a budget price.
Cons:
Neck a bit small for big hands.
Tones:
Playability:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$450
Recording King
www.recordingking.com
Fast forward to the present and the Recording King name is again adorning guitars with a pre-war vibe—from dreadnoughts to 000s, Gibson-esque L series and resos like the RR-50. This Recording King substitutes screened sound holes for f-holes, which gives it a “buggy-eye” look. And when combined with the spider cone resonator and saddle cover it looks a bit like a robot face staring back at you. The deep tobacco-burst lends a subtle touch of class, as does the crown atop its headstock and the Grover butter bean tuners. In general, the craftsmanship is very solid.
The RR-50 comes set up with slightly higher action than the other guitars, which is better for slide playing but still really comfortable for normal fretting, strumming, and single string runs. The narrow (1 11/16”) nut width made it a little bit tight for my hands. And since the neck joins the body at the 12th fret and the heel of the neck block projects out slightly more and makes it a challenge to navigate around the 12th fret.
The RR-50 projects warmth and attitude. It shows a strong and balanced volume between bass and treble strings and the clarity you hear when you strum hard is as pronounced as when you attack it like a fingerpicker. Needless to say, it has the same spider cone honk as the other guitars. But it’s less muddy than most resos in the price range, and you get a cool, bossy growl from slide runs on the bass strings, and nice bell-like tones on the treble side. Together, the blend works best in the lower registers of D and G tuning.
The RR-50 is really suited to serious slide action. The feel and response lends themselves to slackened open tunings. But this would be equally at home for a strummer/songwriter who wants a punchy tone. Recording King has done an outstanding job of making this sound like a more expensive instrument.
Wechter RS-6610FC
Ratings
Pros:
Great separation between bass and treble, very balanced
and clear. Stylish.
Cons:
Less traditional styling may turn off purists.
Tones:
Playability:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$825
Wechter
www.wechterguitars.com
Abraham Wechter has been making guitars for over thirty years including a stint with renowned luthier Richard Schneider in Detroit, and designer Tim Scheerhorn's designs are legendary. And the Wechter RS-6610FC reflects the sense of style and function that’s born of that experience and typifies much of the Wechter line. Wechter’s spider cone resonator has a pretty tobacco sunburst finish and a very cool, almost Les Paul-like cutaway and two f-holes. Cream-colored ABS binding accents the dark sunburst very nicely and the butterbean tuners are a nice vintage touch. Wechter designed the non-cutaway side of the upper bout with a slightly sloped shoulder that makes it a bit more comfortable to hold. And in general, it’s an elegant and subtle package. Craftsmanship is solid and the instrument is free of visible flaws.
The Wechter was sent with D’Addario medium gauge strings (.013-.056), and it plays very evenly up and down the neck. A slightly wider (just a shade under 1 ¾”) nut and string spacing made this guitar very comfortable for strumming, flatpicking and fingerpicking, and the heavier setup suggests that Wechter understands the needs of blues players. The absence of sharp edges on the frets and a setup that favors slide players made this a joy to play. And the shapely cutaway makes access up to the 17th fret a breeze, which facilitates sweet upper register slide work.
The Wechter is cutting and crisp sounding. Strumming chords and fingerpicking blues in standard tuning yields clear, sparkling mid-range tones with excellent separation between bass and treble. Slide workouts in A tuning sounded punchy and resonant, and in total the Wechter sounds exceptionally focused, demonstrates a great volume range and responds to heavy or light attack with equal aplomb.
 | Download Example 1 neck pickup (left coil only) and acoustic pickup |
| Download Example 2 both electric pickups (humbucking - series) |
| Download Example 3 acoustic pickup recorded directly into an iPhone 4 via Peavey's AmpKit LINK. using the Acousticlassic preset |
| Clips 1 and 2 recorded with Electroplex Rocket 22 amp miked with Shure SM57 into ART Tubeamp studio into GarageBand | |
Wechter left Gibson in 1984 to build high-end guitars in his own shop. By 1994 he had arrived at a new original design, the Pathmaker. Wechter thought this model would have appeal in the form of a more affordable, factory-built version, so in 1997, he set up a factory in Paw Paw, Michigan, to build the bold-looking Pathmaker acoustic—a guitar that features a striking double-cutaway body and 19th-fret neck-to-body joint.
Now based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Wechter offers a full line of traditional acoustic designs including dreadnoughts, parlors, OMs, and even resonator guitars. But the company’s signature guitar remains the Pathmaker, which has spawned a design family that now includes solidbody electrics like the deluxe PM-7352—a guitar that Wechter claims can deliver studio-quality acoustic tones through the use of the Graph Tech Ghost Acousti-Phonic system.
Does-It-All With DistinctionThe original Pathmaker was always a distinctive, well-proportioned design. And those visual themes remain very much intact—and recognizable—on the solidbody PM-7352. The guitar is built around a solid mahogany body with a 3/4" curly maple top and a 25"-scale mahogany neck that sports a ebony fretboard and a curly maple headstock cap. While the Pathmaker’s signature double-cutaway silhouette looks more conventional in the form of a solidbody electric, the guitar has a few unique tweaks to enhance playability. On the treble horn, there’s a deep carve to facilitate access to the highest frets, while on the back of the body, the bass side has been uniquely contoured for player comfort. Wechter’s trademark snakehead-shaped headstock also breaks up the instrument’s symmetry in an appealing way.
Boasting a rich sunburst finish on the maple top and mahogany back, the Pathmaker is quite a handsome guitar. The ornamentation is tastefully minimal—just a W-shaped inlay at the 12th fret and a gold script logo on the headstock. Both the body and the headstock appear to have natural maple binding, but a close inspection reveals that this is a most effective illusion—the edges of these areas were simply masked off during the coloring stages of the finishing process. Elegant gold hardware on the Pathmaker includes high-performance 14:1 OEM machine heads, a Wilkinson tremolo bridge, and cool barrel knobs.
Uncluttered in layout and appearance, but vast in tonal possibilities, the Pathmaker’s electronics are what really make the guitar stand out. In the respective bridge and neck positions, you’ll find Seymour Duncan zebra-coil ’59 and Trembucker pickups, a combo never before used on a production-model guitar. Each pickup is housed in a Seymour Duncan Triple Shot mounting ring—never before used on a production-model guitar— which features miniature toggle switches for selecting coils to create parallel, series, and single-coil configurations. The pickups are selected by a standard three-way switch and controlled by master Tone and Volume controls.
The Graph Tech Ghost Acousti-Phonic preamp, which picks up string vibrations through piezo bridge saddles, is powered by a 9-volt battery that’s accessible through a compartment on the back of the guitar. The Acousti-Phonic system has its own Volume control (which can be pulled to activate a mid boost) and a mini switch (which I’d prefer to see in matching gold rather than chrome) that toggles between the various circuits—the acoustic, acoustic plus electric, and electric alone.
The craftsmanship of our review model, which was made in Korea and set up in Indiana with a Plek computer-controlled fret leveler, was top-notch. The polyurethane sunburst finish was evenly applied, and smoothly buffed throughout. And not surprisingly, given the Plek treatment, the fret ends were exceptionally smooth. In fact, there wasn’t a flaw to be found anywhere on the instrument.
Panoramic Sound
When I removed the Pathmaker from its rectangular hardshell case, I was initially put off by its substantial 9.16-pound weight (another single-cutaway mahogany electric with a maple cap weighed in at 8.28 pounds on my digital scale). In seated position, the PM-7352 felt very well balanced and the weight ceased to be an issue. But those accustomed to featherweight guitars may be in for a shock.
Even unplugged, the Pathmaker had a lively character and impressive sustain—most likely due to the resonant tonewoods, set neck, and the heft of the steel block in the Wilkinson bridge. There weren’t any dead spots on the neck, and a subtle natural reverb was apparent on certain notes. In short, the guitar was a joy to play right out of the box.
It was set up perfectly at the factory, with an agreeable low action and precise intonation. With its 1.68" nut width and medium C profile, the neck was comfortable from the first fret to the 24th. It felt silky smooth throughout, too, especially on glissandi and other legato techniques. And major props are due to Wechter for using the Plek system and remaining committed to making their guitar so playable from the first strum.
With the Pathmaker running straight into an Electroplex Rocket 22 amp and the 7352’s humbuckers set in series on the Triple Shot mounting rings, I found the pickups warm and gutsy, with lots of presence for both shuffle-style chord accompaniment patterns and jazzy lead lines.
I toyed around with the controls on the Triple Shot mounting rings a little more to see exactly how much I could shape my tone with the pickups alone. I actually had to consult the Wechter website to establish which switch position correlated to what coil mode. Clearly, it’s not quite as intuitive a process as using a 3-position pickup switch. But moving between voices became pretty simple once I got familiar with the sonic signature of each setting. And the coil-switching rings provided a wealth of useful tones and sounds.
Selecting the parallel-coil setup added a little extra brightness to the bass and treble pickups. And single-coil settings lent a chime-like tone—particularly in the bridge position—that sounded especially nice for clean chord voicings that I gently and happily manipulated with the Wilkinson’s push-in vibrato bar to excellent effect. My only complaint was with the relative lack of taper on both the Volume and Tone controls—a substantial consideration when you have this much tone on tap.
On a flat amp setting, the Pathmaker’s Acousti-Phonic tones won’t be mistaken for, say, a Martin D-28 or a Gibson J-200. But with crafty use of the tone controls I was able to lend a lot more girth to the piezo signal, summoning a tone that would work well in a band context where a super-authentic, accurate, and detailed acoustic tone is less important than creating acoustic textures without feedback.
One of the real (and unexpected) payoffs of the Acousti-Phonic system came when I engaged both the piezo and magnetic pickups at once. This yielded a wonderfully warm and slightly complex sound that lent extra body to clean tones from the magnetic pickups. When a standard mono plug is inserted into the 1/4" output jack, the output from both magnetic and piezo signals sum and are available on one channel. However when a stereo plug (TRS) is used the signal from the magnetic pickups goes to the tip, and the piezo signal goes to ring. This allows the player to use an electric guitar amp for the magnetic signal and an acoustic amp for the piezos—dramatically increasing the range of tones at hand.
The Verdict
Wechter’s PM-7352 Pathmaker is a high-performance modern solidbody with a staggering assortment of sonic possibilities. Well made and eminently playable, the PM-7352 should appeal to a broad range of players, from the studio pro to the wedding-band side-man. While the guitar’s acoustic tones aren’t the strongest or most accurate, they would work very well in a supportive role. In that capacity, the Pathmaker would be an excellent choice for a guitarist who plays mostly electric in a band and doesn’t feel like dragging around a separate guitar and amp for the occasional acoustic song or texture. When combined with the broad spectrum of tone available via coil switching and two excellent pickups, the only limits really become those of the player’s imagination.
Buy if...
you want to get great humbucking and single-coil tones and serviceable acoustic tones from the same axe.
Skip if...
you’re a one-trick pony and don’t need so many sounds or your back is in bad shape.
Rating...
Street $1699 - Wechter Guitars - wechterguitars.com |